Second Defendant Convicted in 2010 Murder of Lorenzen Wright

March 22, 2022 – A Collierville man was convicted Monday in the 2010 shooting death of former Memphis NBA star Lorenzen Wright in a murder conspiracy set in motion by the victim’s former wife, said Shelby County Dist. Atty. Gen. Amy Weirich.

A Criminal Court jury deliberated less than three hours before returning their verdicts against Billy Ray Turner, 51, a landscape business owner and close friend of Sherra Wright, who pled guilty in the case in 2019.

Turner was convicted of premeditated first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and attempted first-degree murder. The murder conviction carries an automatic life sentence. He will be sentenced on the other two felony convictions in April by Judge Lee Coffee.

Wright was last seen alive on July 18, 2010, when he left the home of his ex-wife. Early the next morning Germantown Police received a 911 call from Wright’s cell phone, but the call was interrupted by gunfire. Wright’s body was discovered July 28, 2010, in a field near Hacks Cross and Winchester. He had been shot multiple times. He was 34.

In November of 2017, authorities announced that they had located the murder weapon in a lake near Walnut, Miss. A month later, Turner and Sherra Wright were indicted.

Sherra Wright, 51, pled guilty in 2019 to facilitation to commit first-degree murder and facilitation to commit attempted first-degree murder. She is serving a 30-year prison sentence.

The case was handled by Chief Prosecutor Paul Hagerman and Asst. Dist. Atty. Austin Scofield of the District Attorney’s Crime Strategies & Narcotics Prosecution Unit which prosecutes homicide cases and violent crimes associated with gang activity, including aggravated robberies, kidnappings, rapes, attempted murders, and narcotics trafficking.